


All Right

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 11:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Axel's not that hard to live with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Right

Nearly every conversation starts the same way these days, and even though he's getting a little sick of it, he likes the reminder just enough to not interrupt the next time or the next. _"Aren't you supposed to be dead?"_ The six most beautiful words in any language, right up there with: _"Fuck yes, Axel, harder, don't stop,"_ and: _"Screw finding myself; I'm sleeping in."_

Only the one person he most wants to hear those words from has never said them, any of them, and never will...though hearing them tumble from Sora's lips comes close.

'Tumble' is a pretty good description, though; Sora's mouth is hanging open, his eyes wide, and Kairi winces a little as Sora's hand tightens in a death grip on her own. Axel almost wonders if this is the part where he's supposed to apologize or something, but Sora's just a bit taken aback, that's all. As the shock wears off--and as Kairi squeezes back a little to remind him to ease up--Sora lights up in honest happiness, face splitting in an enormous grin.

"Holy--you're _alive!_ That's--how did you--oh, _man!"_

"Hey, hey, you're blinding me, here," Axel says, pretending to shield his eyes from Sora's smile. "Is that any way to treat an old friend?"

"Get real, Axel," Sora says, reining in his grin to something patient and fond. "Like you're _old."_

Yeah. He can live with that.

Since it's Sora--not Roxas; it's never going to be Roxas again--he can live with being friends.

***

Riku answers the door to his apartment with his hair in his face, his shirt on the bathroom floor, boxers riding low on his hips. He hasn't showered yet, forgot to turn on the timer of the coffee maker the night before, and his eyes are narrow slits that reduce the world to fuzzy washes of color and shape. He sees pointy bits of sun-bleached brown and wide discs of ocean blue just before a pair of hands comes up to pinch his cheeks and force his face into a smile.

"Sora," he tries to say, and...well, it would have come out a muffled grunt anyway, even without the liberties Sora is taking with his person.

The forced smile attack just means he's got a good excuse to shut the door in Sora's face.

"Riku," Sora protests, wedging his foot in and checking the door with his shoulder. "Wake up, okay? It's important--Axel's back!"

Riku blinks, leaning in the doorway as his brain decides it maybe ought to hear this after all. _Axel's back._ Which could be bad news, except that Sora looks so happy about it. Which might have worried Riku once upon a time, only Sora's with Kairi now, and that, as they say, is that. It never occurs to him that Sora might be misinformed; Axel is, after all, standing right behind Sora and making a rather disturbing attempt at looking harmless.

Riku yawns--politely, behind his hand--and blinks a few more times, lining the facts up one by one to be considered.

Fact: Sora is flashing one of those high-wattage smiles that increases the ambient light in his general vicinity by a magnitude of ten.

Fact: Axel is once again a living, presumably breathing presence in the world and seems not to know the difference between the look of 'I come in peace' and 'I'm picturing you naked.'

Fact: Sora looks like he's about to ask Riku to buy him a pony.

"All right," Riku mutters, turning away from the door to stagger resignedly towards the kitchen. He needs coffee for this. "He can have the couch. Nobody set anything on fire."

It isn't fair that he's the only one old enough to have his own apartment. If the leering redhead had waited another year, he'd be Sora's problem. Well. Sora's and Kairi's, anyway.

Even three-quarters asleep, Riku suspects he's just agreed to more trouble than he knows.

***

It doesn't take Axel long to figure out that he's never going to figure Riku out. There's just too many contradictions there, only that doesn't sound like quite the right word. That word's got baggage, makes him think of things like 'hypocrisy,' like 'double standards,' and that's not Riku at all. There's got to be a better phrase for the way things that ought to be mutually exclusive set up house in perfect domestic bliss whenever Riku's involved, and eventually Axel comes up with 'dichotomous,' takes 'symbiotic' for a test-drive one day as he watches Riku roll a Dark Aura across a patch of asphalt to drain the heat out of it, just so Kairi and Selphie won't have to burn their feet on the dash down to the beach.

Riku doesn't shine like Sora, but he's still got way too much Light in him to be able to use the Dark so naturally. And that's not the only thing; he's way too neat to treat his clothes the way he does, looks way too good in anything to be so careless about what he wears. He's got an animal's alertness every hour he's awake, but he hates mornings with a passion that must be seen to be believed, and while he's still the first one anyone goes to when there's trouble or they've got a problem, he doesn't think he's a hero. Axel agrees.

Riku's an _anti-hero,_ the guy who does all the right things in ways that make other people uncomfortable or for reasons they just don't get...but not-getting Riku's something of a national sport on these islands, so no one's too worried when Riku brings up something out of left field or does something that goes right over their heads.

Sometimes Axel thinks to himself, _I should get a job._ He's been mooching off of Riku for two weeks, and even though Riku's never said one word about it, Axel doesn't really expect him to. Riku's never once called him on the purposefully-unsettling grin Axel had flashed the time Sora brought him over to unload him on Riku, either.

There's always the possibility Riku had just been too asleep to notice, but Axel doesn't think so.

Riku's friends are more vocal, though only one of them has enough guts to nail him for it.

"All right," Selphie says one day, poking Axel in the chest while he's sitting on the front steps of Riku's fourplex. If this cozy white building with its new shingles and neatly-trimmed hedges is the Big Island's idea of slummy apartments for the college-bound, Axel thinks he's been hanging out on the wrong worlds. "Look across the street and tell me what you see."

Axel cranes his neck to look around her obligingly--cranes it _way out,_ like whatever point she's trying to make is too far-off to see--and smirks when he gets poked again. "The secondhand clothes store, the hair place--that better not be a hint, by the way--the video store--"

"You mean the one with the 'Help Wanted' sign?" Selphie asks with only a vague stab at an innocent look, planting her fists on her hips as she stares down at him, smiling.

"Ease up, Selphie," Riku says lazily, sitting beside Axel though there's enough space to fit two of Selphie between them. Riku's leaning back on his elbows, legs stretched out before him and face tipped up to the sky, eyes closed against the glare of the sun shining down from all that perfect summer blue. The sky is the exact shade of Roxas' eyes, but Axel's pretty sure that's not the color Riku sees when he bothers to look. "It's no picnic getting thrown into the normal world."

"Huh?" Selphie says with a puzzled frown. Axel's grateful she said it for him; he would have blurted that out for completely different reasons.

Riku doesn't open his eyes, his faint smile relaxed and unchanging. He hasn't said that to score points with either of them; he says it because he _knows._ How hard it is to take things like a nine-to-five schedule and the-customer-is-always-right seriously when you're used to skulking in the shadows and throwing magic around, to dealing with monsters instead of bored grannies and mouthy teens.

Well, okay, so the mouthy teens are pretty much universal.

"Hmph," Selphie says, wrinkling her nose and then coming up from the sidewalk to throw herself down in the empty space between them, wrapping her skinny arms around her knees and rocking a bit with a sudden smile. "I wish _I_ had a rich boyfriend to move in with."

She gets smacked from two different directions, but that just makes her laugh, irrepressible and sweet.

***

Axel's not that hard to live with. Riku's surprised by this, though he suspects he shouldn't be. Sora's louder, Selphie's weirder, and Kairi can psychoanalyze a guy like nobody's business. Dealing with Axel's dry sense of humor and sly insinuations is a piece of cake.

"Can you get that?" Riku asks as the phone starts to ring, rubbing his batter-smeared cheek against his shoulder before he remembers he hasn't put a shirt on yet. Great. Why does everything have to be so _messy?_

"Yeah, yeah," Axel grumbles from the couch, leaning way over to snag the cordless from the table. Riku's not the only one dressed down for the summer mornings; Axel's skin has gone a deep bronze in the last month or so, and it's somehow easier now to notice the sleek flex of muscle underneath. Riku's not sorry to have something else to focus on other than his near-morbid fascination with how unnaturally long Pale-Axel's limbs had seemed.

Assured that the phone will shut up any moment now, Riku turns back to the stove and starts spooning pancake batter onto a heated skillet. He's not sure how it happened; he usually doesn't bother with breakfast at all unless it's leftovers from the night before, because he's usually not awake enough to care. He just woke up with a craving this morning.

"Hey," Axel says in the next room, still fanning himself lazily with the comics section, though the open window is letting in a nice breeze already. "Uh, no...you've got the right number. This is Axel," he adds, and Riku glances once over his shoulder with a frown, dismissing the caller as a telemarketer or some random girl from school. His friends are used to Axel by now. "Hold on, I'll get him," Axel says suddenly, and Riku frowns again as Axel ambles up with the phone outstretched, an odd grimace on his face.

"What?"

"I think it's your mom," Axel says, and suddenly the look of weirded-out disbelief makes sense.

Riku nods once and lets Axel wedge the phone between his cheek and shoulder. His hands are kind of busy at the moment. "Hey, mom. What's up?"

_"Do you know what time it is?"_ his mother asks, and Riku almost panics until he remembers they haven't actually made plans to meet and that therefore he cannot, technically, be late. Unless he's forgotten to mark his calendar or something.

"Eight?" he hazards a guess, hoping that playing innocent will save him.

_"Seven forty-five."_

Weird. Not even his mother, insane morning person that she is, would make a date with him this early.

"Okay...."

_"Riku, dear. Let's look at the facts, shall we?"_ she says, and Riku winces, reminded all over again of where he got that particular habit. _"Fact. It's seven forty-five and you're speaking coherently. Fact. There's a strange young man at your apartment at an hour which you've never seen on a day that doesn't involve school."_

Riku winces again, seeing exactly where this is going. "Mom--"

_"Fact. This young man is apparently used to answering your telephone. Fa--"_

"I'm making pancakes," he says, desperate to head off this particular line of questioning before it can get any more embarrassing.

There's silence on the other end of the line, and it stretches until Riku's half-mad with impatience, the urge to start babbling an explanation tickling the back of his throat.

_"Pancakes? At seven forty-five in the morning? You must really like this one. Even Sora never got pancakes."_

"Mom!"

_"Bring him by sometime, would you? Your father and I want to meet him. Well,_ I _do, anyway; tell your boyfriend--Axel, is it?--to smile and nod when your father starts babbling. He means well,"_ she sighs, _"but he's so old-fashioned."_

"Mom, it's not--"

_"Oh! And don't forget to give the college your new address; you've got some mail here if you want to come pick it up. Have fun with your pancakes!"_

The pancakes. Shit.

They're not burned, but it's a near thing. He flips them over just before they can get a little too brown, and he notices that his distraction did him that favor, at least; he's usually too impatient and turns them before they're quite ready, so they either ooze off the spatula or he has to flip them again. This time the first set to get scraped off onto the platter are perfect.

Axel's sitting at the kitchen table when Riku finally drops the phone--it's been buzzing in his ear--and turns to find him. The guy still looks a little shell-shocked, but probably not for the same reason Riku is. Leaning on his arms, long limbs folded so his hands can grip his elbows, Axel's staring at Riku like he's never seen him before, not wholly. Riku can't tell whether Axel even likes what he sees; for all that he's fond of big gestures, bold opinions, Axel's got a mean poker face when he wants to use it.

"That was your mom," Axel says after a moment, just to have it said, or maybe it needs repeating; how should Riku know? "I keep forgetting."

"That I've got a mom?" Riku asks, and somehow it doesn't come out incredulous at all. There'd been times--times _out there_ \--when he'd forgotten that himself. Or...not forgotten it, really. It just hadn't seemed quite real at the time.

"You've got a mom," Axel agrees, some complicated mix of apprehension and effort moving behind his eyes. "You've got a life. You're...eighteen?" he guesses, and Riku nods once, silently. "Shit. You're _eighteen._ You're...this is it, isn't it?" Axel laughs and doesn't sound like he enjoys it much. "I keep thinking that this is just a break, that we'll all...go back to fighting again. And maybe we will, but...."

"Maybe we won't," Riku finishes the thought for him when all Axel does is stare, the whole universe reordering itself in sharp green eyes. "We can't spend our whole lives waiting for things to go wrong again."

Axel shakes his head but doesn't look away. Riku watches him for a few minutes longer, the possibility of waking to an empty apartment looming suddenly real and unexpectedly uncomfortable. Axel can still travel the dark pathways, after all. There's nothing stopping the guy if he wants to go someplace more interesting. If Axel hasn't figured out by now that hanging around hoping that Sora--that _Roxas_ \--will change his mind is a waste of time, he's not half as smart as Riku gives him credit for.

Axel doesn't get up from the table, and Riku turns away at last, goes back to making pancakes. When he figures he's got enough to keep Axel busy for a while--and Riku doesn't know where it all goes; Axel never gains an ounce, but damn can the guy eat--he goes looking for forks, plates, puts butter and the syrup he heated up in the microwave on the table.

Glancing down at the food and back up at Riku, Axel looks lost for a moment before his off-kilter sense of humor reasserts itself once more, a sly smile turning up the very corners of his mouth. "Domestic, aren't we?"

"Blame my mother," Riku shoots back, smiling serenely as Axel's eyes go wary and confused. "She seems to think pancakes are a sign of true love."

When Riku goes to pick up his mail, he leaves Axel at home, tries his best to explain to his mother that no, they're just roommates, _honest._

He can't stop thinking about it, though. Has he really never made pancakes for Sora? And sure, Sora's picked up Riku's phone plenty of times, but it usually involves a game of keep-away first, and Riku is usually reaching over Sora's shoulder trying to reclaim it before Sora can accept some embarrassing proposition on Riku's behalf. It doesn't even bug him to have Axel around in the early morning hours--and as far as Riku's concerned, every hour before ten is early--because Axel lets him wake up at his own pace, and if the guy drinks all the coffee before Riku crawls out of bed, Axel just makes another pot.

Axel can amuse himself. Axel doesn't _need_ Riku, doesn't expect him to solve--or make--any of his problems.

Axel's...comfortable.

Riku's smiling when he gets back home, which makes Axel arch a brow, pausing in the middle of tying his boots to go out.

"What?" Axel asks, jerking the knot tight and sitting back on the couch with a curious look.

"Nothing," Riku says, shaking his head. Something makes him add, "I don't think my mom believed me."

"Oh?" Axel looks like he can't decide whether he should be uncomfortable or not or even for what reason and shrugs at last. "I was going to see if that place across the street is still hiring."

"The video place?" Riku asks, surprised, because he's guilty of it too. He can't quite see Axel--dangerous, deadly, confident Axel--stuck behind a counter all day. "You know you don't have to, right?" he hears himself say, feeling uncomfortably like he's making a complete idiot of himself. "I mean...it's cool; it's covered. If Selphie's been bugging you--"

"No," Axel says, and his smile is a thank-you neither of them are up to saying or hearing at the moment. "It's like you said. Can't spend all my life waiting for things to happen. And anyway, I hate going backwards."

Riku's never asked how Axel came back in the first place; he's always figured Axel will tell them when he's good and ready to. It's funny, though; he's always kind of assumed that someone else had done them the favor, and he's wondered now and then who it is they should thank. Now he's starting to think that maybe Axel did it all by himself, and Riku finds himself respecting the guy even more.

"So?" Axel asks. "Think they're still hiring?"

"I don't think you'll have any problem getting on there," Riku says, trying not to smirk. "It just so happens that Selphie's dad owns the place."

Though he laughs out loud, realizing the joke's on him, somehow Axel doesn't look the least bit surprised.

***

It's not so bad, the life of a blue-collar consumer flunky. Actually, he's lying; he hates it, but something keeps him at it, day after day. It's not that he's worried about being a drain on Riku's finances; Sora told him that first day about the trust fund and Riku's grandfather, just so he wouldn't feel uncomfortable. That first day, he wouldn't have. Now he figures Sora's better at thinking ahead than he seems.

So it's not that he's worried about pulling his weight, and it's not like he's looking to get out and find a new place. Riku hasn't even hinted that he ought to, and that couch is more comfortable than any couch has a right to be. Though Axel hasn't put it into words, he knows that the day he leaves Riku's apartment is the day he leaves the Islands altogether.

At first he puts it down to stubbornness. If Riku can learn to live in the so-called real world, then so can he. He's done it before, after all, before he ever lost his heart and took a new name. In all honesty, he's not sure he has a heart now, either; maybe that's why he still goes by 'Axel.'

He tries to tell himself he stays for Roxas, but even he's not that big of a masochist. Sometimes he can still see Roxas in Sora if the sun is just right and he throws a fast sideways glance, but that doesn't do him any good, and it doesn't take him long to stop trying. The Roxas he'd known had been a lot younger-- _Jailbait,_ a corner of his mind reminds him unhelpfully, uneasily--and Sora's old enough, experienced enough, to know just what he wants and go after it these days. He and Kairi make a real cute couple. Axel tells himself he doesn't mind, so long as Roxas--Sora--is happy.

So he smiles when Sora comes into the store, laughing over his shoulder at something Tidus says, to return the videos they'd rented the night before. There's still another day left on the rental, but Axel knows Sora likes to check up on him when they haven't seen each other in a few days, not because Sora doesn't trust him, but because Sora checks up on all his friends. Sora wants everybody to be happy. It's part of what Sora _is._

Still. Hope springs eternal, right? And it never goes down without a fight.

Sometimes Axel just needs to hear the words before he can let something go.

"Hey," he says while Tidus is still trying to sneak a look at the age-restricted section, and Sora rolls his eyes at one friend before looking up curiously at another. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Axel. What's up?"

"Well...it's about Riku," he says offhandedly, coming at it from an angle, because the way he figures it, if Sora's ever had second thoughts about a guy, it'd be Riku, right? But if even Riku hasn't been enough to bend the kid-- _Right, he'd been a_ kid _at the time_ \--then...he just wants to know he hadn't ever had a chance, that's all.

"Riku?" Sora echoes, looking oddly cagey. Axel narrows his eyes, but even if Sora knows what he's about to ask--maybe especially then--he has to go through with it anyway. He's come this far, right?

"Yeah. Did you two ever...?"

Sora's eyes go wide, a little panicked but not nearly shocked enough for Axel's peace of mind...until Sora starts babbling. "Me and... _Riku?_ Oh, man, are they still saying--I mean, no, _really,_ 'cause Riku's--not I have a problem with it at all, you know? If your hearts are connected, that's all that matters, right? It's just...well, I like girls, honest, and...look, you don't have to worry about it, okay?" Sora says at last, taking Axel by the arm and looking so earnest and encouraging it's enough to make a weaker man want to cry. "If you like him, I'm not going to get in the way. And I've never seen him take to anyone like he has to you," Sora adds with a fond smile. "He's pretty clueless, though, so you're going to have to hint a lot louder if you want to catch him."

Axel thinks about trying to explain, to set Sora straight--pardon the pun--but then he'll have to explain why he wants to know in the first place, and he doesn't think he's up for that. He's got his answer, anyway, even if it came in a way he wasn't looking for.

"Right," he says. "Got it memorized."

Sora blinks at him, because he doesn't say that much anymore, just when he's more agitated than he usually wants to let on. Used to be memory was all he had; even if he couldn't really feel, he could set things in stone and pull them out to look at later, store up the small moments of his life against a time when he'd have a heart to experience them with again.

He still isn't sure whether he has a heart these days, but if he does, it's got to be pretty confused. Realizing he's been chasing a dream he knew all along he couldn't catch...that hurts; just not as much as he expects it to.

He's a bit distracted by the fact that _'Riku's taken to me?'_ keeps going through his head, hand-in-hand with a weird urge to grin like a moron.

***

Riku comes home from fighting the lines at the college bookstore to find Axel sitting on the floor in front of the couch, the coffee table piled high with junk food and the opening credits of Riku's favorite movie just beginning to roll. Axel cranes his head back to grin at him as Riku hesitates just inside the apartment. "Hail the conquering hero," Axel says, and oddly enough Riku feels _just like that,_ and he has the bruises and scratch-marks to prove it. College bookstores are a cutthroat world, but scoring the last copy of his Lit textbook is worth every battle scar.

"Are we celebrating?" he asks, just to make sure, and Axel waves him over with that breathy chuckle Riku's so...fond of. No, confused by. Or...maybe fondly confused by.

"I remember college," Axel says, which is the first clue he's ever given about his age that Riku can remember. He supposes it doesn't matter; the Axel who went to college isn't the one who danced with fire, and the one who'd sacrificed himself for Sora isn't the man who turns the coffee maker on when Riku forgets, who comes home on his lunch or dinner break and makes enough for two, who calls Riku a lazy bastard if he grumbles about getting up early so they can all go train with Sora some mornings.

Riku dumps his bags by the door and kicks off his shoes, finds himself smiling as he wanders over to collapse on the couch. That pizza is calling to him, reminding him that he's spent the day elbowing his way to victory and never stopped for lunch.

"They still holding the freshmen classes at the crack of dawn?" Axel asks, glancing at him sidelong while tipping back a beer. Riku wonders briefly how Axel managed that; legal age or not, it's not like he has ID to prove it, a fact that had given Selphie's dad fits until all her friends vouched for him.

"Earlier," he groans, leaning forward with a sigh to snag a slice that he eats in roughly five bites, but neatly. He doesn't understand how 'fast' and 'clean' can be mutually exclusive for most people, but he acknowledges that evolution is still a work in progress.

"Poor baby," Axel croons, and Riku laughs at the false sympathy as he sits back with a handful of chips.

"You'll be thinking 'poor baby' when I'm getting up early _every day."_

"Fuck. I forgot about that. Give me back my pizza, you bastard."

"I'd _really_ rather not," Riku says, smirking a little. "Don't forget fighting over the shower."

Axel has that glittery-eyed look that says he's holding his tongue and it's killing him, so Riku stretches out a foot and nudges him in the thigh. "Don't hurt yourself," he says.

"Oh, nothing." Axel's tone of private amusement isn't very private at all. "It's just that I owe Sora five bucks."

He can't get an explanation for that no matter how hard he tries, so he lets it go and sits back to enjoy the movie. He'll get it out of Sora later anyway. Right now he's supposed to be relaxing.

It's good to be home.

***

Axel's been awakened by enough shambling zombies to recognize the distinctive tread, and he's not sure whether he's more disturbed by the fact that yes, _this is his life,_ or that Riku does a pretty good shamble first thing in the morning.

"That's today?" Axel asks, a little out of it himself as his own alarm starts shrilling on the table.

"Urgh," Riku mutters, glaring at him blearily before disappearing into the bathroom.

Axel takes just enough time to make sure the coffee is percolating before wandering out to fetch the paper from the front steps. He doesn't have much use for the international pages, and the metro section is mostly just island gossip that he picks up from Riku's friends anyway, but he's addicted to the comics. Except for a few strips that are mostly political humor, the funny pages are universal.

Riku still isn't out fifteen minutes later, and Axel gets up at last to go knock on the door. "How's the hot water in this place?" he asks, thinking resignedly of cold showers and vowing to set his alarm ahead.

"Flush away," Riku calls back, sounding markedly more awake though he hasn't quite caught on to what Axel's really asking. "Just don't run the dishwasher, and no one has to die."

Well, hell. Who's going to notice if Axel's hair is more creative than usual today? But now that Riku's mentioned it....

Blinking against the steam, Axel slips inside the bathroom and doesn't look at the shower doors. They're frosted glass, but that doesn't help much; even from the corner of his eye, he can see Riku moving around in there, turning his back to the spray and lifting his hands to card through his hair, and--

Eyes. Right. Only now he's glancing down at his own dick, and only the fact that he doesn't want to give himself a complex keeps him from laughing ruefully. Talk about excellent timing. Time to think about really unsexy things. At least it'll keep his mind off his roommate.

Who shuts off the shower just as Axel is washing his hands, and Axel reaches for a hand towel just as the shower door slides back so Riku can reach for a bath towel, and it takes Riku blinking at him in sleepy surprise for Axel to realize that he's turned the wrong way, towards the wrong door, that he's _still here_ instead of slipping out again so things won't be awkward.

"Shower's all yours," Riku says, looking not at all self-conscious as he wraps the towel around his hips and steps out, moving around Axel and heading for the door. Their arms brush briefly, and Riku doesn't shy away or even seem to notice. Only no one's that clueless, are they?

_Maybe they are if they think you're waiting for someone else,_ he finds himself thinking, and that little voice is one he hasn't heard from in a long time, not since roughly the day he had his heart ripped out so fast his body just plain forgot to die.

"Hey, Riku," he says before he can be left alone in here, eight hours of soul-killing boredom stretching out before him like a death sentence. "You ever think of leaving?"

Riku stops at that, and there's a half-stifled jerk of hesitation in his shoulders as he turns back to look at Axel. "Sometimes," Riku admits quietly, his face more shuttered than Axel's ever seen it. "But there's people who want me to stay, and I don't want to let them down."

And fuck. _Fuck._ That's it, isn't it? Riku's got people who are counting on him, who wouldn't understand if he just up and left, and Axel...he's been wanting that too. For someone, anyone, to want him to stay. For _Riku_ to want him. And maybe, if the wall that just went up between them is any kind of hint, Riku already does.

"Yeah," he says, reaching out and brushing the tips of his fingers over the curve of Riku's shoulder, arousal a shivery tension in the pit of his stomach as he feels warm skin pebble under his touch. "I can understand that."

Riku's eyes search his for a long moment before the younger man nods, expression warming slightly as he turns for the door. "Right. We're going to be late."

"Well, maybe if somebody didn't hog the shower," Axel manages to tease, thinking that eight hours isn't so bad. Better than forty. He can handle it if he thinks of it eight hours at a time.

Just before he slips through the half-open door, Riku tosses a grin over his shoulder that makes Axel glad he's getting second shot at the shower. So that he can take his _time._ "In order for me to hog it," Riku points out with deadly-sweet reasonability, "I'd have had to refuse to share. You," he adds, "didn't ask."

"Erm."

"Have a good day at work, dear," Riku purrs, shutting the door, and Axel can hear him snickering all the way down the hall to his room.

Cockteasing little bastard.

Revenge is going to be sweet.

***

"Hey! Riku!" Sora shouts, waving his arm wildly as if Riku could have missed him in the nearly empty coffee shop. Nearly empty, that is, except that all of Riku's friends are here, minus one. Two, if you count the King, but Mickey's got better things to do than celebrate--or commiserate over--the first day of school. College for him and Wakka; the others are all seniors now, and next year it'll be their turn to compare battle wounds from honorable combat over the last copy of _Quantum Physics: The Big Book of Little Ideas._

Riku slides into his place on Sora's left with a smile, greeting and being greeted, and everything's just the way it's always been, just the way it always will be. Some days that's enough to make him want to scream, but not when it comes to his friends. He still wants to go sometimes--Axel can see right through him, it seems, even if no one else can--but he doesn't want to leave anyone behind. He doesn't want anyone to hurt over him. He's been the cause of enough of that already.

It's hard to brood on it, though, with Sora laughing like his entire life has been nothing but this: the tail end of a long, sunny day at the far edge of summer, surrounded by friends, sure of his place in the world and in their hearts. Sora's good at leaving the past behind. It might be because he's got so much to look forward to, enough hope and determination to change even the bad things for the better. And he's got all of them to back him up, Kairi most of all, who shines as bright as Sora does these days with a quiet sort of happiness that's everything Riku's ever wanted for his friends.

Riku sits and smiles, but though he can't complain about the company and he's genuinely pleased for all of them, something feels odd, off. These are the people he's known practically all his life, whose quirks he knows inside and out, but when Tidus and Wakka get into an elbow match while Selphie pretends not to notice, the person Riku wants to trade eye-rolls with isn't there.

"It sucks that Axel has to work today," Sora says out of the blue, and the only thing that keeps Riku from jumping is the fact that he's used to Sora reading his mind like that. "Although I don't envy him having to deal with you first thing in the morning."

"Axel's tough," Riku says haughtily, though he's trying not to smile. "He can take it. Unlike _some_ people I could mention."

"Hey, I nearly lost fingers that one time!" Sora protests, waving his left hand around meaningfully. " _Fingers!_ You know, most people grow out of biting when they're _two."_

Riku snorts. "Most people don't try to make others smile in their sleep."

"I thought it'd help," Sora protests, looking pitiful and wounded. " _Most people_ look cute and innocent when they're asleep."

"What's Riku look like, then?" Kairi asks, grinning at them both.

Sora sniffs pointedly. "Like he's going to bite you if you touch his face."

"Just be glad I don't bite when you do it to me while I'm awake," Riku says, smirking evilly, and Sora leans out of his way, crossing his fingers as if Riku's just turned vampire. It nearly puts him in Kairi's lap, but she doesn't seem to mind at all.

"So are you and Axel getting along?" she asks, untroubled, sharing Sora's knack of putting the past behind her.

"Yeah," Riku says, hunching one shoulder as he looks away and plays with his coffee cup. "He's all right."

"All right?" Kairi echoes, eyes lighting up with amusement as she tries to contain a grin.

"Shh," Sora whispers loftily. "That's guy-talk for 'supercool awesome friend who doesn't get on my nerves like some people do.' Don't let on that you know."

Kairi giggles outright, and Sora only yelps a little when Riku kicks him under the table.

"Moron," Riku says, but he's smiling just the same. Sora's right, after all. "Hey...you knew him before, right, Sora?" Riku hears himself ask, and he almost shuts up then and there except that Sora's giving him a wide-eyed look that makes him decidedly nervous. Like Sora's expecting him to say or ask something completely embarrassing, in public, and Sora's not sure whether to stop him now or drag him off for a private discussion. "I mean--he doesn't seem like--do you think he's happy?" he gets out at last. "Working in a _video store?"_

Oddly enough, Sora actually looks relieved.

"I don't know," Sora replies honestly. "Roxas doesn't remember that much anymore; we've grown back together too much. But even if Axel's not completely happy, I think he's found something worth sticking around for."

Riku's frown feels skeptical even from the inside; he can't imagine what it looks like from the outside. "Well, unless he's addicted to pancakes--"

Sora's jaw drops; Kairi just looks impressed. "Pancakes?" Sora demands. "You never made _me_ pancakes."

"You weren't sleeping with him," Kairi points out reasonably.

"I'm not sleeping with Axel, either," Riku protests, ignoring the stares he gets from all around the table in favor of rolling his eyes.

Sora just cocks his head at him and asks, "Why not?"

***

Axel's been waiting for Riku to come home, and he's been dressed the part all day: leather pants, a tight black shirt, and who cares if it's still technically summer? He looks good--he knows it and Riku's going to know it--and that's all that matters.

So he's a little put out when he hears someone come up the steps and knock on the door instead of walking right in. The only person he wants to see right now is Riku, and while that's way too familiar, he's strangely okay with it.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he grumbles, walking over to the door, and when he throws it open, he has to drop his eyes with a puzzled frown to see who it is. The woman standing on his doorstep is small and dark, maybe five feet in heels, with tousled black hair and eyes the most amazing shade of aqua he's seen since, oh, eight this morning.

"You must be Axel," Riku's mother says and does an excellent job of proving that the faint crinkles around her eyes and mouth are laugh lines, not wrinkles.

"Uh," he says, momentarily taken aback, but he recovers quickly; it's just one of his many gifts. "Come in?"

"Don't mind if I do," she says, adding dimples to the mix as she makes her way over to the couch.

After the first few uncomfortable minutes thaws into real conversation, Axel decides that Riku's mom is pretty all right.

Riku just arches his brow at them when he comes home and finds them on the couch, bonding over some of the more interesting things Riku has said or done before coffee. If he's at all nervous, he doesn't show it; he just ambles up, perches on the arm of the couch on Axel's left, and tosses his mother a shrug.

"I see you've met my boyfriend," he says, and he doesn't sound like he's joking.

The hand he rests on Axel's shoulder doesn't feel like a joke, either.

"It's about time you noticed," Axel mutters, because he's just spent the last twenty minutes assuring a concerned parental figure that he and Riku aren't dating, damned sure aren't fucking, haven't even discussed it yet, and that not one bit of that is Axel's fault.

"That's my boy," Riku's mother says, trying and failing not to laugh. "Totally clueless."

Riku snorts and looks pointedly away, not dignifying either of them with a response.

***

He expects a discussion after his mom leaves, because it's pretty high-handed of him to have just _decided_ things like that, even if Axel had been quick to go along with it. He should have known better, though; Axel tends to be pretty decisive himself and hasn't ever been shy at making his displeasure known if he doesn't agree with something.

When the door shuts on Riku's mother, Axel turns to him with a grin, and just like that, they're kissing. It's good, too; thanks to Axel, it starts out voracious, but Riku likes things thorough, likes to take his time and make sure it's done right. He likes having Axel groaning into his mouth, too, the urgency of the hands that strip them both, the way Axel's stare goes possessive and hungry and careful all at once.

"Bed," Riku says--he's not sure he'll ever think of it as his room, singular, again or want to--and Axel follows him without a word.

They're both quiet after, but it's not a strained silence or an uncomfortable one. Lying with their legs twined together, Riku plays absently with the disordered spikes of Axel's hair, lips twitching into a smile as Axel's fingers map out his chest and sides, looking for ticklish spots. He figures now's the time for discussion if they're going to do it at all, but he can't figure out how to start it himself. He's not even sure now what needs to be discussed.

"What are you going to do after college?" Axel asks suddenly, and Riku looks over at him with arched brows.

"Get a job, I guess," he says with a small shrug. "I won't really need one, but...."

"You could always travel," Axel says, and there's something intense in his eyes that doesn't make Riku nervous, exactly, just makes him listen a little more closely. "See the sights. Come back every few months to touch base with folks. That kind of thing."

Running his fingers slowly through Axel's hair, Riku lets himself really think about it for the first time since he washed up on the beach with Sora and found Kairi waiting for them both. Travel...because by the time he's finished with college, the others will be almost at that point themselves, ready to start their adult lives, ready to...let go. Or at least allow enough slack in the ties between them that he can go away, so long as he comes back.

"I always wanted to see other worlds," he says quietly, his hands wanting to tense, wanting to _hold,_ because that's years away, after all. He doesn't know yet if waiting's in the plan.

"We can do that," Axel says, and the relief in his voice makes Riku smile as well. "I might get a bit stir-crazy now and then, but hey, that's what Spring Break's for, right?"

"And the winter holidays," Riku reminds, finally starting to relax.

"And summer vacation."

"Travel."

Axel grins, and though it's like nothing Riku's ever seen before, he knows he wants to see it again. Often.

"Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't mind coming back here, but this place is just too _small._ You know?"

Riku laughs a little, and though it's a little rueful, he finally feels at peace with the past. "Yeah," he says, smiling as Axel's arm tightens across his hips, pulling him closer. "No one better."

And having found something worth staying for, he's just grateful that they'll get to leave together.


End file.
